Why does the military seem to be preparing for urban warfare in the United States?

As I outlined in the article, this is in fact part of a broader trend of joint military-police drills (which often include other agencies, hence the “multi-agency” label) that have been occurring across the United States.

It seems hard to ignore the fact that the armed forces of the United States are training for urban warfare, not urban warfare in the Middle East, but instead here in our own nation.

This is becoming painfully clear due to the fact that the military trains for what they think they’re going to do.

If they are planning to fight in the desert, they would train in the desert and obviously if they are going to be fighting in a metropolitan setting in the United States, they would train in an American city.

Unfortunately, this is exactly what we are witnessing: increasing amount of training in urban American environments.

The Los Angeles drill is just a microcosmic example of this, and one of the more disturbing developments is the announcement of a “mock city roughly the size of downtown San Diego” which has been erected recently at the Twentynine Palms military base.

This is located northeast of San Diego and cost the taxpayer $170 million with the intention of training American military forces to wage urban warfare.

According to the Marine Corps, the facility boasts a staggering 1,560 buildings.

The Corps are quick to highlight that it “will allow troops to practice and refine skills that can be used around the world,” even though it is clearly aimed at preparing troops for warfare in the United States.

The reason this is quite obvious is that urban warfare is radically different depending on the country you are in. This is evidenced by similar mock cities being erected to mimic a city in Afghanistan, a training facility which would not help troops prepare for war in a large American city.

In fact, the article on Military.com in which this project is detailed mentions the mock Afghan villages, while failing to point out that this is radically different than the previously erected training sites.

This new mock city “is one of the largest and most elaborate” with a whopping seven separate mock city districts spanning a massive 274 acres of desert.

There are fake hotels, markets and other businesses which boast actors who create scenarios to challenge the soldiers.

These scenarios reportedly range from humanitarian relief to peacekeeping missions to police work and, of course, direct combat missions, according to the Marine Corps.

This new facility will allow over 15,000 Marines and Sailors to simultaneously engage in training missions, which can even include operating in the nearly 1,900 feet of underground tunnels in the complex.

The massive mock city also includes a manmade riverbed, dozens of courtyards and compounds which will give trainees practice searching for escape tunnels, hiding spots and weapons caches in an urban environment.

The Associated Press claims that this is merely an expansion of the Mojave Viper training program, launched in 2005, which was aimed at preparing troops for deployment in Iraq.

Just a few months ago in November, the Marine Corps showed off their expansion of the mock Afghan village at Camp Pendleton which cost $30 million and almost quadrupled the size of the facility.

While connecting this new project with the facility at Camp Pendleton is quite inaccurate in my opinion, they do paint a bit of a different picture of the older facility by writing, “In that facility, Marines scramble through a maze of mud walls leading to mosques, schools and carpet sellers, as Hollywood-style explosions go off.”

They mention that “Similar immersion training facilities are slated to open this year at Marine Corps bases in North Carolina, Hawaii and Okinawa,” however they do not make it clear which facility these new ones are similar to.

Are these to be similar to the mock Afghan village with mud walls and mosques? Or will these be similar to the newer facilities which more closely relate to the environment of a large American city?

I think it is much more likely that these new facilities will be closer to an urban environment in the United States, rather than the relatively undeveloped Afghan or Iraqi villages.

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This contention is also reflected in the more frequent nature of urban military drills as shown by the exercises in Los Angeles (about which some more specific details have emerged), along with others in major urban areas.

Some other examples that come to mind are: Vibrant Response 12 conducted in August of last year at the Muscatatuck Urban Training Center which involved “7,000 Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and DOD civilians responding to a simulated 10-kiloton nuclear detonation in Cincinnati,” military exercises in and around Boston in July of last year, mock night raids in Virginia on January 17, 2012, and more.

These urban warfare exercises are not restricted to the United States. Indeed, similar exercises have occurred in the United Kingdom this year as well.

The problem here is that downtown Los Angeles is nothing like the operational situations in Iraq or Afghanistan, although it would prepare the military for operations to be conducted in Los Angeles itself or any other large American city.

Thanks to a reader, I have also become aware of something called the MUTC.

The MUTC, or Muscatatuck Urban Training Center, is located in South Central Indiana’s Jennings County, which is near Butlerville.

According to the official website, operated by the National Guard, it “is a secluded, self-contained community, once home to the Muscatatuck State Developmental Center. The 1,000-acre site was turned over to the Indian National Guard in July of 2005, and since has been continually evolving into a full-immersion contemporary urban training environment.”

The MUTC seems very similar to the new facility being erected outside of San Diego, due to the fact that it boasts a 180-acre reservoir along with an urban environment which includes some 68 major buildings including: a school, hospital, dormitories, light industrial structures, single-family dwellings, a dining facility and administrative buildings.

In total, there is 850,000 square feet of floor space for the military to train on along with an underground utility tunnel system and more than 9 miles of roads and streets.

MUTC does not only involve the military, indeed they say that it is a consortium which includes governmental, public and private entities who work together in order to give the personnel the most realistic training experience available.

Highlighting my grave concerns, which are shared by many of my readers, the MUTC website points out that this facility indeed provides, “Training that can be tailored to replicate both foreign and domestic scenarios and that can be utilized by various civilian and military organizations.”

It is likely quite obvious to my readers that this is focusing on domestic scenarios, as all of the recent military drills in actual urban environments have been doing.

A short list of those who use the MUTC includes: Army, Navy, Marine, Air Force and Special Operations Forces, State Emergency Management agencies, Federal Emergency Management Agencies, Federal Bureau of Investigations, State Departments of Health, National Air Patrol, Department of Homeland Security, State Counter-Terrrorism Agencies, Law Enforcement agencies and much more.
Apparently pre-existing facilities like the MUTC aren’t enough for the military establishment, leading to new facilities being erected, older facilities being expanded and even more facilities to be unveiled this year.

The burning question this leaves unanswered is: why?

Why are they preparing to wage war with American citizens on our own turf?

I have previously written about the fact that all the pieces are in place which leaves me wondering: when will the hammer drop?

The question is left unanswered to this day, and I continue to hope that I am totally off base here and that nothing will ever happen.

I hope beyond all hope that all of this preparation, seemingly for warfare in the United States, is in fact totally innocuous and no such scenario will ever present itself.

Unfortunately, the military and government have shown that they usually know what they’re doing, even if they pretend they don’t when they’re put under scrutiny.

It is quite unlikely that these preparations are totally irrelevant and will not be used in any way.

If you have any information on military maneuvers, exercises and drills, especially occurring in major urban areas or other training centers that replicate a city environment, please e-mail me immediately at: [email protected] so I can craft more complete articles in the near future.

Madison Ruppert is the Editor and Owner-Operator of the alternative news and analysis database End The Lie and has no affiliation with any NGO, political party, economic school, or other organization/cause. He is available for podcast and radio interviews. Madison also now has his own radio show on Orion Talk Radio from 8 pm — 10 pm Pacific, which you can find HERE. If you have questions, comments, or corrections feel free to contact him at [email protected]